“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” she had said, instead. “I think, after a while, you’ll see that this means you can start over, start afresh,” a statement that someone else might have found insensitive, handing Rosa Lynn a plate full of fudge that she had almost certainly made early that morning, melting white sugar, brown sugar, and cocoa with just enough butter, hot but not too hot. She kept the candy thermometer on a hook above the stove.
“You just keep yourself fed, take a bit of a rest. Come over for dinner tonight, I’ll cook you a nice hot meal. Your father would be happy to see you.”
Rosa Lynn had walked out the side door, fudge in one hand and a bag containing a black dress in the other, wishing she could travel back in time to a day before Wednesday. To a day before nineteen eighty three. To a day when she could have sat in her parents’ basement, watching tv and eating fudge until she couldn’t feel her tongue. When she would have believed that yes, the Lord did work in mysterious ways and that when He closed a door, he opened a window somewhere. To a day before everything that meant anything.
Stifled by the air, she sat at the back of the church, her legs bumping uncomfortably against the red kneeler and the pew in front of her. Bare below her black wool dress, they were covered with tiny bramble scratches. If the borrowed dress had had pockets she would have hidden her hands in them, but instead she tucked them under her bare knees to keep them warm. Even though she was almost chocked by the hot scent of wood trapped in the humid air, her fingers still felt numb at the tips. Her fingers felt numb, her knees ached, and her feet tingled with pins and needles. And her mother said this was a chance to start over.
Someone began to play the organ.
Rosa Lynn withdrew one of her hands from the warmth of its hidingplace and began to rub her collarbone. There were little half-circles of dirt under her nails and a white line around her wrist where her watch had been, until she had lost it.
People were starting to enter the church from the door behind her, whispering as they passed by in the aisles. Her parents went by, gave her a sad glance, and went to sit where they always sat, third pew from the front, two seats in. She just stared straight ahead, her red-rimmed eyes fixed on the coffins at the front of the church. The funeral was starting.
Some people say there are only two things to do in a small town when you’re young: drink and fuck. When she was younger Rosa Lynn had done both, and kept herself occupied, but in the past six years she had discovered the third pastime.
Wait.Wait until you finish school.Wait until you get a job.Wait until you get a place of your own. Wait until you’re older. Wait until she’s older. Wait until she’s old enough to understand.
She’ll never understand. Wait. Wait.
Time passes slowly all alone on a church pew. Rosa Lynn could barely feel her fingers as she turned the pages of the Good Book. She needed a drink. She needed a cigarette. But she’d given up smoking during the pregnancy and never taken it back up. It was bad for the baby, they said. She’d given up the drinking, too, of course. Although she still did that, a little, late nights, after a long day, sitting alone on the safe eating a grilled cheese and staring at the tv. And sometimes a glass of wine, Sunday dinner with her parents, if she didn’t have to work early the next day, just a little something to go with the roast and small talk. But now, as one after another the speeches passed by her, descriptions of lives only half lived, not even half lived, a quarter lived, no, one sixth, one tenth lived, as tearful words about families and members of the community pushed their way through the humidity, she really wanted to get smashed like old times. To get smashed and feel the burning smoke make its way down into her lungs without worrying about creating a perfect future for Sasha, a perfect mother. She could do that now. Not worry about the future.
She didn’t go to the burial. Only immediate relatives had been invited. Legitimate connections. Maybe, if she had made a fuss, she could have gone. She could have watched as they winched three coffins side by side slowly downward. Stood at the back of the crowd. Kept her eyes dry. Stared at the names on the gravestones after everyone had left.
Anne Laura Mitchell Brashler. 1953-1989. Beloved wife and mother. Rest in Peace.
Gregory Nicholas Brashler. 1950-1989. Beloved husband and father. Rest in Peace.
Sasha Anne Brashler. 1983-1989. Beloved daughter. Rest in Peace.
She could have made a fuss, like she never had before.
Instead she walked out of the church before the ceremony was over and kept on walking. Straight past the corner store and the school and the last row of houses down to the river. She slipped off her shoes and walked right in, up to her knees, and tried not to be dramatic. She didn’t want to be dramatic. That’s what her mother had said, when she’d finally worked up the nerve to tell her, when she couldn’t hide it anymore. “Now, there’s no need to be dramatic. We’ll take care of this, don’t you worry about it.” So she hadn’t been dramatic. She just needed to feel weightless, like before the crash. Weightless, like the moment after you’ve given birth, high on endorphins and pain.Weightless, themoment after she’d just come, before Josh would press down on her, before she could hear the car radio again and smell the rum she’d spilled on the seat. She needed to float down the river, away from her sins, away from her hopes, away from graves, from small towns and families.
Some people say you never get over a thing like that. Some people say she’s young, she’ll recover, and really it’s all for the best. After all, isn’t that why you give them up, to get over it? Isn’t that why you give anything up? But no one tells you how some days, yes, you do forget. Minutes pass, days pass, years pass. You live in your apartment alone and you go to work alone and you eat your dinner alone and you forget there was ever any other option and you forget that she’s just down the street, maybe still in school, or maybe at home drawing a picture or maybe watching tv. The leaves fall and you sleep well at night. You feel lost, but you sleep well at night. She doesn’t know who you are, but you sleep well at night. You sleep well at night and you float in your dreams. But Rosa Lynn couldn’t float now. Now things had changed and she couldn’t forget. Now she was wearing a borrowed black dress and if she got it wet it might never dry. Instead she walked along the shore, feeling her feet freeze against the rocks. She kept her eyes on the ground, looking for a stone that she could skip across the water, one that would maybe even reach the other side.
She couldn’t go home. That is she couldn’t go back to the apartment. Even though it was quiet there. Even though she could lie down there. Lie down and sleep, maybe. Maybe sleep for a hundred years, long enough for everyone to be gone, to wake up covered in brambles and surrounded by leaves. But she couldn’t go to the apartment and she couldn’t sleep. And she couldn’t go home.
It was one of the last warm days of summer. One of those days that seems like the year putting out all the heat it can before the tap is turned off for the winter. Rosa Lynn supposed that now Mr. And Mrs. Brashler were opening the door to their house, setting down their things and going out to the back, making sure that the food was all set out. Mrs. Brashler would be taking the cold cuts out of the fridge and Mr. Brashler would be in the bathroom, making sure he could say thank you without crying. Mr. And Mrs. Mitchell would be waiting in the car outside the house, wondering whether they should be inside.
The town would be arriving: the minister; the schoolteachers; brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins; neighbours. Rosa Lynn bent down and picked up a stone, trying not to get the dress wetter than it already was. She drew her arm back and tried to skip it, but it only sunk with a sad little plop. She picked up another and it jumped across the water a couple of times like Jesus walking to the fisherman, but still it didn’t reach the other shore. Rosa Lynn wavered a little, suddenly unsteady on her feet. She remembered that she hadn’t eaten breakfast and she was missing lunch. She thought of her mother’s invitation to dinner. She thought of roasts and cakes and pancakes and pie. She thought of canned soup and Zoodles and dry cereal and burnt toast. She thought of awkward silences and her throat closing on mashed potatoes and people sitting around a table, trying to cheer her up.
Rosa Lynn did not want to cheer up. Rosa Lynn wanted to go to the Brashlers’, eat sliced meat wrapped around pieces of cheese, drink beer, drink vodka, tell stories and cry. She wanted to own a car and drive out of town. She wanted to find Josh Gardner, push him up against the school’s brick wall and beat the crap out of him. She wanted to go to 57 Park Lane and stand outside the house, watching, waiting. She wanted. She tripped on her own feet and almost fell, rushing out of the river, up the bank, past the devil’s paintbrush, longing to climb a tree like she did when she was ten and look down on the ground and people’s heads through the leaves and up at the sky. Rosa Lynn sat down with her back to a maple and took deep breaths. In and out. In and out.
She had the day off work. It wasn’t mentioned, but she knew she had the day off work. She couldn’t go in, take inventory, give change, rearrange the shelves. She wished she had to. She wished no one knew that, of course, she had the day off work. What was the point, if everyone knew? What was the point, if everyone knew and wouldn’t say? What was the point of doing the right thing? Of not making a scene? Of working and waiting, when you just ended up wandering through the bushes, trying to avoid the people you knew so they wouldn’t see you crying? Rosa Lynn turned on her stomach and tried to concentrate on the dirt, beneath the grass. She tore out clumps and shook them, listening to the fall of dirt like rain on a lake.
She picked the blades apart nervously, watching the dirt under her nails grow green.
Some people say that your parents can kiss you and make it all better. She would go to dinner. She wouldn’t go to dinner.
She would sit in the grass and wait for the sun to set.
Third Place
Hart House Literary Contest